M3 LS - REAR END WORK

A little more progress on the M3 to share.

With all the suspension pulled the next job was underside cleanup, seam welding buttoning up the rear cage and cutting out the spare wheel well to clean things up.

I found that the rear trailing arm mounts were all cracked. Seems BMW only welded 2/3 of the way around the mounting bolts which is fabulous. I am sure 90% of all E36's have cracked mounts here and that 100% of tracked cars are cracked.

Anyway, as race cars are nothing but champagne and hot chicks.....After about 15 hours of delightfull cleanup I was able to seam weld all the chassis in the back end. Then finished up the rear cage and rear subframe mount tie ins.

I then made some stiffener plates for the trailing arm mounts and installed them with full perimiter welds and 3 rosette welds per plate. This should now be much stronger and should handle track/drift abuse for a long time.

Seam welded trailing arm mounts, cracks fixed and stiffener plates welded in.

Made a universal brass bush for welding the rear cage to the rear subframe mounts to protect the bolt threads.

The trunk floor has been cut out, cleaned up and templates for the new floor are made. I might get that made today but I cant weld it in as I ran out of MIG gas yesterday.